BioShock 2 Captures World of Rapture with Art Deco Design, Period Music

One of the appeals of 2K Games’ “BioShock” videogame is a complex storyline, which was influenced by Ayn Rand novels like “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

In “Atlas Shrugged,” Rand writes about a dystopian world where innovators like business leaders and artists go on an organized strike and disappear to protest an oppressive society. Similarly, BioShock is about Rapture, a fictional underworld city that was designed in 1946 as a utopia for the intellectual elite, who fled an oppressed society above land, only to see Rapture also break down.

In designing the city of Rapture, Hogarth De La Plante, the lead environment artist, chose an Art Deco look, influenced by buildings in Manhattan. “Art Deco was a triumph of man over nature,” said De La Plante, adding that many of the buildings in the game are “humongous, unnatural and have lots of right angles that evoked the image of stairs that people could climb to get to heaven.”

He said it is the perfect look, not only because it fit the timeframe of the game’s story, but because “Rapture is a city where not only are humans awesome, they can also build a city in the water, which should be hostile to them.” De La Plante said he found it fitting that the city physically collapses as the society in Rapture also falls apart.

Gary Schyman composed the score for both BioShock games, but Michael Kamper, the audio lead for “BioShock 2”, said that it also used period music from the 1920s to 1960s to reinforce the storyline.

Rapture in the first BioShock was controlled by Andrew Ryan, the business magnate who created the city of Rapture as a laissez-faire state that stressed individualism, so 2K Games chose songs that fit into Ryan’s world view. One example was Patti Page’s “How Much is that Doggie in the Window?” which had a message that would appeal to Ryan’s ideal of consumerism.

“The videogame medium has so much potential to influence audiences in the 21st century, but the opportunity is squandered by many developers because they’re putting out the same aesthetics,” said De La Plante.